Many computer systems contain a root complex communications bus according to a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™ (PCI Express™ (PCIe™)) protocol in accordance with the PCI Express™ Specification Base Specification version 2.0 (published Jan. 17, 2007) (hereafter the PCIe™ Specification). In such systems, platform devices, embedded microprocessors, input/output (IO) controllers, IO bridges and virtual devices running on a central processing unit (CPU) may all interact. Platform initialization and manageability protocols used on the root complex bus can support both master-slave as well as peer-peer interaction models. Root complex nodes may interact directly with other nodes via a direct memory access (DMA) architecture and through management control transport protocol (MCTP).
As the sophistication and capabilities of root complex devices increase, the security risks associated with possible compromise increase also. Devices accordingly are mutually suspicious of other devices until the configuration of such devices is verified. Current verification processes however are time consuming and complex, and can still lead to a security compromise.